The Midwest Championships, prt i

This weekend is the 14th Annual Midwest Girls High School Championships.

Three Wisconsin teams compete for the division one championship. There are two pools of three teams for this year's championship: DSHA, Penn HS, and Kettle Moraine in one. CMHS, St Joseph's Academy, and South Bend in the other.

DSHA returns as the favorite, having won every championship since 2003. Penn HS and South Bend, both from Indiana, played early in the spring season, with Penn pulling out a narrow victory, 21-15. Who the stronger team is a month later remains to be seen. Penn HS has a history of multiple appearances and strong performances at the Midwest Regional. Notre Dame's women's coach Kate Daley played for Penn HS at their Midwest Regional appearance way back in 2004. With a large number of teams, Indiana continues to rise in the power rankings.

Meanwhile, St Joseph's Academy, an all-girls Catholic school out of Cleveland, lost to Lakewood Ohio 29-15 last week to determine Ohio's number one team. As a repeat National Championship contender, Lakewood always plays at a high level and the competitiveness of Ohio's big rivalry game leads one to anticipate St Joseph's being a strong contender. They should emerge stronger for playing competitive teams.

Kettle Moraine finished third at last year's championship, and appears to be even stronger than they were last fall. Despite some tough losses to CMH and DSHA in their spring build-up, they have a lot of power and an experienced core.

CMHS had a solid fall season and is Wisconsin's #2 seed, having three consecutive victories over Kettle Moraine under their belt. They won the second division at Midwest last year and it will be interesting to see how they do in the top division this year.

What's just as interesting as the pools and matchups for this year's event is the list of teams that will not make an appearance at the tournament. Sadly, an event that represented every state with a full league of girls teams for the last number of years, has lost Minnessota, Michigan, Illinois, and Allegheny from the top division. Disappointingly, Ohio's top team, Lakewood chose not to compete. Michigan has a couple teams in the second division, but chose to drop out of the championship. And the Chicago teams seem to be struggling. For years Allegheny sent a strong represnetative, Fox Chapel. They aren't coming either. For years they made a big effort to travel a good distance to play stronger competition and they'd worked themsleves up to fourth. Minnessota, which might have the most girls teams of any state, declined to send a representative as well. Even though one of their teams played 15's out at the Las Vegas Invitational a few months ago and with the tournament being a little closer to Minnessota this year, it seems their focus has shifted.

Last year's tournament boasted three tiers and 24 teams. This year, two tiers and 14 teams. How much of this has to do with the restructring of Nationals one has to wonder? Competing teams no longer have any chance to qualify by playing head-to-head for a seed at the big dance. Certainly, some of the drama and shine rubbed off the event.

Despite the chang ein format and participants, it will still be a GREAT tournament and one of the bigger girls rugby events in the country, for sure. It features the old dynasty in DSHA, a veteran champion contender in KM, plus new up and comers in St Joe's, CMH, South Bend, and Penn HS. Maybe smaller might be better this year, as the best teams there can focus on playing fast rugby, without the blowouts the 8th ranked team has faced in recent events.

More on the second division and the teams in the next report ...